Idiots and Lost Causes
by wordybee
Summary: Jeff and Annie have been in the habit of giving up for so long that neither of them noticed that they never actually did.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's note:** 8,000 words of this fic were written post-Season 3 and pre-Season 4. The rest will be consistent with this, making this fic a sort of AU._

**Title: **Idiots and Lost Causes  
><strong>Author: <strong>wordybee  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>Up to season 3, I guess.  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T for now?  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Weird timeline. Swearing. Mopey Jeff Winger.  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>1,745 for this chapter.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I don't own Community.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Jeff and Annie have been in the habit of giving up for so long that neither of them noticed that they never actually did.

* * *

><p>There's a glittering diamond ring resting on Annie's finger – not too big, but not exactly a speck of a thing either – and it's with an excited flourish that the twenty-four-year-old announces her recent engagement. Everyone jumps out of their seats and goes in for a group hug, the usual congratulations (Shirley's practically singing them, actually) becoming an indistinct cacophony of words and wordless exclamations that makes the other people in the bar turn toward them. There's a smattering of awkward applause from the more drunken patrons (<em>Do they think we're all getting engaged to each other?<em> Jeff wonders. _Why are they clapping?_) but for the most part, the strangers seem uninterested in the "good news" and more interested in them no longer making such a scene. Jeff, who's on the edge of the group hug – awkwardly patting shoulders with one hand while his other still clutches a glass of scotch – kind of gets where the angry outsiders are coming from.

When they all (thankfully) settle back down and the glares of the Friday night crowd at Pauline's Pub (pretty new, moderately cool, safe for groups, no hipsters in sight and a good selection of decent drinks; the menus aren't laminated and they use the word 'pub' without irony or tackiness) are no longer focused on the Greendale Seven, Britta holds up her Vodka Neat With Four Olives and says, "To Annie!"

Everyone follows her lead, clinking glasses and taking sips and smiling, and well – if Jeff downs his scotch in one go, it's because it's not on par with his regular stuff and savoring it just isn't on the cards tonight. He makes sure to order something better the next round and surreptitiously texts his girlfriend ('Mary' in his contacts list, but her name is actually Marylou and no one's allowed to know that) and tries to keep the smile on his face.

Hours later, when Jeff is folding himself into the back seat of the cab someone had called for him (maybe Pauline's Pub doesn't have as high-quality liquor as Jeff previously thought, because he'd consumed that other glass of scotch pretty fast, too, and when drinking below-par scotch got to be too redundant Jeff started ordering vodka martinis instead and those weren't that great at all) he reaches into his jacket pocket in an attempt to get at his phone but his fingers touch something else – a napkin, he realizes when he takes it out. It has some writing on it that Jeff's eyes are too tired to read. He shoves it back in his pocket and tries not to throw up, because he hears that cabbies charge you extra if you do that.

* * *

><p>The first words out of Jeff's mouth when he gets back to his apartment are "My friend Annie's getting married."<p>

And it's a good thing there's actually someone standing there, because otherwise Jeff would be talking to himself and then he'd be drunk and crazy.

He doesn't seem notice the look of exceptional understanding in Mary-Not-Marylou's dark brown eyes but it's there, because she isn't a stupid woman. Neither is she a malicious woman, nor a particularly jealous woman, or completely blind, or entirely without comprehension of the situation she'd found herself in when they'd met over a month ago.

"Is that so?" she says, voice mild as she pulls off Jeff's coat and drapes it over the arm of his couch. Jeff suddenly seems to realize she's in his apartment, looks around, and goes,

"Where did you come from?"

The truth is that Mary had noticed a sharp decline in Jeff's spelling and grammar in his texts over the course of the night and had put two and two together to equal 'Jeff Winger might drown in his own vomit,' so she took it upon herself to make sure that didn't happen. She'd used the spare key he keeps in the potted plant by his door to let herself in. None of that is worth mentioning to a man who wouldn't remember in the morning, however, so she just says "Montana," and smiles.

Mary leads him to his bed, pulls off his shoes and socks and belt but leaves on the rest of his clothes because it's cold in the apartment and trying to undress and re-dress a 6'5 man-shaped mass of drunken dead weight is pretty much impossible. She pulls the covers around him, fetches a glass of water and two aspirin and sets them on his nightstand, and clunks a small wastebasket somewhere around where his head might end up if he needs to hurl in the middle of the night.

"They have terrible scotch at Pauline's Pub," Jeff mumbles into his pillow.

Mary says, "Funny how you never mentioned that before."

He's asleep by the time she shuts the light off. She's watching TV on the couch until three. As she listens for any sign that Jeff might need her help and half-watches an infomercial, she thinks, _It's only a matter of time now_.

* * *

><p>(This is how they met: Jeff was visiting Annie, who was volunteering at the hospital where Mary worked as a nurse, and he'd suavely introduced himself to the pretty woman with curly golden-brown hair and the nametag with "MARY MASON, RN" etched into it. Mary asked him out without hesitation as soon as names were exchanged, which seemed to throw him completely, and she really should have noticed the way his eyes automatically flicked over to where Annie was chatting with a white-coated doctor, holding a stack of folders in her arms and nodding enthusiastically.<p>

She didn't, though. He said yes, they went for coffee on her break, and something about Jeff made Mary tell him that her name was really Marylou, and that she was from Missoula, Montana.

"Marylou Mason from Missoula, Montana?" he'd asked with a smile.

She laughed about it. She'd never laughed about how ridiculous that was – and yes, people had noticed, and commented, and joked – but she laughed when Jeff said it with that smile.

When the conversation turned to past relationships and availability and whether or not coffee during Mary's break was considered a date, she saw the glint in Jeff's eyes. The little tell he definitely wasn't aware of that just screamed _IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE_. Mary had to deal with a lot of stubborn patients and a lot of cagey doctors and she was extremely good at seeing things that people didn't want her to see. She was also extremely good at fixing things and helping people and, as Mary closed herself off from the possibility of getting anywhere at all with Jeff Winger, she sipped her coffee and decided to be his friend instead.)

* * *

><p>Jeff wakes up to the bizarre, paranoid fear that he's being tormented by the multifaceted glare of diamonds but soon realizes that it's just his brain exploding from a <em>massive<em> hangover. He cracks one eye open and instantly shuts it again because the mid-morning light flooding his bedroom is like staring directly into the _fucking sun_ and it makes his stomach roll and his head throb.

He pulls his comforter over his head in order to block out a majority of the light pouring in from his window and slowly, slowly, _slowly_ moves into a sitting position. Then he slowly, slowly, _slowly_ opens his eyes and it still hurts, but it's mostly okay. Jeff blearily looks around the room until his eyes catch sight of a great, glorious glass of water (it feels like something large and foul died in his mouth while he was sleeping) that he flails his hands vaguely in the direction of and eventually manages to grasp. He sips the water gently at first, then enthusiastically, and is about halfway through when he notices to two little white pills on his nightstand. He downs them with the rest of the water, feels slightly less like his insides had been carved out and used as shelter for various unpleasant and possibly zombified creatures, and pulls his comforter more tightly around his shoulders as he valiantly tries to stand.

It actually works, though the world lurches from side to side just a bit, and Jeff manages to get to his door and into the short hall and, eventually, into the living room. Mary is sitting in the black leather armchair, reading a magazine or something and circling things with a purple ballpoint pen, and Jeff slumps onto his sofa with all the grace of a beached whale.

"You want breakfast?" Mary asks him, not looking up from her magazine.

"God, please, no food ever." Jeff pulls his comforter over his head and cocoons himself in the glorious darkness of the navy blue fabric.

His voice is muffled when he says, "Thanks."

Mary doesn't ask what he's thanking her for. She just hums an acknowledgement at him and, Jeff assumes, keeps circling things.

* * *

><p>(Here's how Mary found out who Jeff was in love with:<p>

They'd known each other for two and a half weeks and Jeff said he was going out with some of his friends from college, and would she like to come along and meet them?

He took her to Pauline's Pub and over to a table where a strangely varied group of people were sitting. When Jeff had said 'friends from college' she'd kind of assumed they'd all be male, Jeff's age, maybe from a Frat or a football team or some Law club or something, but no. There were three that could be no older than their mid-twenties, one woman that was probably a bit younger than Jeff, one woman that was probably a bit older than Jeff, and a man in his mid-sixties, at least. Jeff introduced them all and said, "Guys, this is Mary," and they'd all said "Hi, Mary," like it was some bizarre AA meeting.

One of the women – Annie, the young brunette with a grin so cheerful and bright it could rival the sun, who looked very familiar but Mary couldn't place how right then – laughed and said, "I could've brought Vincent along if I knew it was Couples Night!"

Jeff's grip on Mary's hand tightened and he huffed out a laugh that sounded less like a laugh and more like a man who'd just been punched in the gut. He said, "Yeah, totally," and Mary had a face and a name to put with that big flashing sign of unrequited love emblazoned across Jeff Winger's heart.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **Idiots and Lost Causes  
><strong>Author: <strong>wordybee  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>Up to season 3, I guess.  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T for now?  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Weird timeline. Swearing. Mopey Jeff Winger.  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>2,585 for this chapter.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I don't own Community.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Jeff and Annie have been in the habit of giving up for so long that neither of them noticed that they never actually did.

* * *

><p>Jeff wakes up a second time after falling asleep in his comforter-cocoon on the couch and he feels significantly better until he remembers why he'd been drinking in the first place.<p>

(Annie with a glimmering diamond ring and a smile just as sparkly. Engaged to a guy Jeff only knows as a name in anecdotes.)

He pulls his blanket away from his face and looks around the room. The light coming in through the windows is the yellowish color of afternoon and there's another glass of water and another couple of aspirin on the coffee table next to him. Jeff drinks the water but leaves the pills and stands up to wander into the kitchen.

Mary is sitting at the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen and she hands him his phone. Jeff notices that she still has a purple pen and she's still circling things but she's added a yellow legal pad to the mix and Jeff doesn't really feel like questioning what's going on.

"This was in your jacket pocket," says Mary, then hands him a napkin, "and this."

Jeff takes the napkin and instantly recognizes Annie's handwriting. _If found call 555-0109. _Even when using lipstick on a napkin, Annie kept the characteristic neat, girlish touch to her writing.

"Oh," says Jeff. He looks at Mary carefully, but she doesn't seem angry. Obviously female handwriting, phone number, out late and home drunk – she should be angry, right? That's how it goes on TV, that's how things usually stack up for wacky relationship hijinks and/or non-wacky relationship implosions. Jeff doesn't know if TV got it wrong or what, but Mary isn't showing a hint of jealousy or anger or paranoia or _anything._

"There's some mac and cheese in the oven if you want it," she says. She stands up and pats Jeff's shoulder, tucks her magazine and a stack of papers in the crook of one arm, and grabs her purse from the back of her chair. "I've got a late shift tonight. I'll talk to you later…?"

Jeff nods, his thumb rubbing distractedly against the screen of his cell phone as he tries to figure out whether he's in trouble with his girlfriend or not. He wishes he'd had more _girlfriends_ and less _flings_, because he doesn't have a clue if this is normal or abnormal or if she might have poisoned the mac and cheese. He feels like he's missing something very important, and it'll come back to bite him eventually.

When he hears the door open and shut – quietly, like Mary is conscious of Jeff's persistent headache and doesn't want to hurt him – he comes back to himself and looks down at the napkin in his hand.

_Oh_, he thinks, and he remembers.

* * *

><p>("Jeff, are you sure you're okay?" Britta asked him, and that was rich coming from her – Jeff wasn't the one who'd been moments away from dancing on top of the bar, only to be talked down by Troy. He didn't say that. Jeff just gave her a bobble-headed nod and ate one of the olives from his second martini.<p>

Britta wasn't the one who reached over and pulled Jeff toward her, though. That was Annie, giddy with drink and good news, and she said to him, "Jeff, I think you've had enough."

But Jeff shook his head. He waved for another martini – or he tried to, but his arm had grown a mind of its own and just sort of flopped backwards against the back of his chair, then onto the table again. Annie's touch was a hot iron on the hand not uselessly flopping around and when he looked at her she had a soft expression on her face. Her eyes were bright and glassy and her smile was big and Jeff desperately wished there wasn't a ring on her finger that meant he couldn't think of her in the way he thought of her, that he couldn't think about kissing her or telling her that she mattered to him in a way that went beyond friendship and shared experiences and respect for her good brain or her good heart. He suddenly felt very sad, and was glad his attempt to flag down the bartender had failed. He probably didn't need any more alcohol.

Annie giggled just a bit. She picked up a napkin and wrote _If found_ and her phone number on it with a thing of pinkish-red lipstick and tucked it into Jeff's jacket pocket, then zipped the pocket closed.

"Don't lose your jacket," she said.

"I won't."

There was a lull. Jeff frowned and said, "You know I have a girlfriend."

He ignored the part of his voice that made him sound like he'd just remembered that fact himself. He ignored the guilty twinge in his alcohol-muddled mind that connected his feelings for Annie and his disappointment in her engagement with the fact that he had no right to be disappointed. He had no right to have feelings.

But Annie apparently couldn't see the mix of emotions on Jeff's face. Nonplussed by his mention of a girlfriend, she simply replied, "Yeah?"

"It'd be smarter to write her number."

She shrugged. "I don't know it."

That made Jeff smile. Because it'd be easy for Annie to just swipe Jeff's phone and find Mary's number in his contacts list but, "You like being the one who takes care of me."

Annie's expression was somewhere between amused and indignant with a touch of embarrassment. She stirred her drink and blushed prettily and that was when Jeff kind of fell asleep on the tabletop. He only woke up when Troy smacked his shoulder and said, "Your taxi's ready to go, man," and by then, Annie was already gone.)

* * *

><p>Jeff is knocked out of the memory when his phone rings and buzzes in his hand. He accepts the call (from Shirley) and coughs out a hoarse, "Hello?"<p>

"Jeffrey, are you okay?" Shirley's voice is full of concern and admonishment. It is two in the afternoon and Jeff probably sounds like he'd just woken up (which he had, of course, but still) and he can't remember if Shirley noticed Jeff's enthusiastic drinking the night before but he really wants to restore some level of dignity to the situation.

Jeff clears his throat and says, "I'm fine, Shirley," and actually sounds like it could be true. He ties up the lie cleanly by saying, "You caught me in the middle of eating."

"Oh. Well, don't eat too much. Annie wants us all to have dinner with her and Vincent tonight over at the apartment. We have to congratulate the happy couple!"

Shirley sounds positively _overjoyed_ by the idea and even though Jeff _really, really_ tries, there's no way he can make his "Yeah, we do," match her level of zeal.

Shirley says that they're eating at six and Jeff blandly tells her he'll see her there.

He pulls the phone away from his ear and ends the call. The good news is, he'll finally have a face to match to the name "Vincent." That's also, unfortunately, the bad news.

* * *

><p>Normally, the fact that Jeff had arrived home in a taxi the night before would give him the perfect excuse not to go anywhere, but he's too overcome by curiosity to take that out. Curiosity, he thinks, and a touch of rather sick emotional masochism.<p>

Picking up his car means he can probably get there a little late, though. Late is cool. Late means _Jeff_ is cool – with the dinner, with Annie getting married, all of it.

* * *

><p>Jeff still arrives on time despite all his efforts, and he wonders if the universe warped time just to fuck with him. He's still pretty hung-over and doubly nauseous because the taxi he'd taken to get his car had smelled like some late-night partier had probably been charged extra for their trip quite recently. It was the sort of smell that lingered. His head still hurts, too, but before leaving he'd taken the aspirin Mary had left for him and they're starting to kick in so his chances of hiding it are good.<p>

When he opens the door, Abed announces, "Jeff's here!" and ushers him into the living area of the apartment. The younger man provides another tick in the _yes_ column of Jeff's mental _Is Abed psychic?_ chart by taking one look at the covered ceramic dish and saying, "He brought mac and cheese."

Troy is immediately all over that. He walks up to Jeff and takes the dish, opens up the aluminum foil cover and sniffs it like it's some glorious five-star meal and not leftovers that Jeff had just stirred up a bit to hide the portion Mary had taken out of it. It _was_ pretty good mac and cheese, though. Troy sets it in the center of the table.

Jeff is evidently the last to arrive, which is good for his ego in a bizarre way that he's never tried to understand. Troy joins everyone else already situated around the TV just as Annie bustles in from the kitchen with a strange man in tow. Obviously Vincent. Jeff is instantly suspicious of the man because he's mousy-haired and kind of nerdy, maybe in his late twenties or very early thirties and he doesn't look like anyone Annie would actually go for.

(Jeff ignores the part of him that tells him Annie's taste in guys hadn't done her much good over the years, and maybe she intentionally chose someone out of type because her "type" tended to be douchebags.)

"Jeff!" Annie seems quite peppy tonight. "This is Vincent," she says, gesturing to the man and then, to _Vincent_ she says, "This is my friend Jeff."

Vincent holds out a hand for a handshake and Jeff takes it, trying his hardest not to crush the guy's fingers in a cliché display of contempt. He doesn't trust him. Why had Annie never introduced any of them before? How had they gotten to the point of _engagement_ and none of the group had met the guy, or knew anything about him other than his first name?

(_Who is Annie Edison going to be in several months' time? Is she going to have some different name and some different life? Will he – will _they_ even know her at all?)_

"Nice to meet you, Jeff," Vincent says, and he's got an accent. He's got a _fucking English accent_ and Jeff wants to murder him with the pair of scissors on the table next to him. Then Jeff wants to sell his soul to the devil, perform a magic ritual to bring Vincent back to life, and kill him again. Hell would be _so worth it_.

(Jeff can compete with nerdy and young. He can compete with smart, funny – whatever else Vincent could turn out to be, other than nerdy and young. There's a level of appeal achieved by the English accent, however, which gives otherwise feeble opponents an edge that Jeff can't overcome.

_Not a competition_, Jeff berates himself, and tries to believe it.)

There must be a glint of Jeff's rather homicidal intentions sparkling in his eyes because Vincent reaches with his other hand to forcibly pull away from Jeff's grip. He laughs nervously and says, "Annie, your friends are very charming."

Jeff's fingers twitch in the direction of the scissors. Vincent is only saved by the sound of buzzing and Annie saying, "Uh, _sweetie_, come with me to get the pizza and dessert. Jeff, there are drinks in the kitchen if you want anything." She turns to the rest of the party. "We'll be back in fifteen minutes, tops, guys."

Pleasant smiles follow the happy couple out the door, until it's shut behind them and Jeff is surprised to hear Pierce blurt, "I don't like him."

"Oh come on, Pierce," Shirley says, "I think he's sweet! And that accent is so charming. I thought British accents sounded kind of funny, but now I realize that is was just because the only time I'd ever heard one in real life was from Professor Duncan and he was usually drunk."

Britta nods, "Yeah, as much as I loathe the oppressive system of marriage – no offense, Shirley – and abhor the concept of lawfully forced monogamy because it's generally a trap to sell flowers and wedding dresses to clueless women – again, no offense, Shirley – I'm happy for Annie. She's young and idealistic and that's adorable. I say we let her live these happy days in peace because god knows it's going to turn on her eventually."

Britta takes a sip of her wine and turns back to watching TV with Troy and Abed, wholly ignorant of the anger lasers boring into her skull via Shirley's incensed glare.

"I'm gonna go bake something," Shirley growls.

"We don't have anything to bake," Abed says.

"Then I'll drink something and think about baking. Watch your television."

"Okay."

Jeff sighs. "I'd hate to say this, but I agree with Pierce," he says as Shirley stomps into the kitchen. He pulls up a chair and leans in toward the rest of the group conspiratorially.

"I mean, what do we _actually know_ about this guy? Have any of you ever met him before? Troy, Abed, you live with Annie – has he ever been over before now?"

Both men shake their heads. Troy takes on a particularly suspicious look that Jeff finds encouraging, but Britta snorts.

"Come on, Jeff," she says. "You're acting like it's some big conspiracy. Annie's been talking about Vincent for _weeks_. Maybe months, I don't know – sometimes I zone out."

"Yeah, but what has she _said_ about him?"

Britta doesn't have an answer for that. Annie had pretty much told them that Vincent existed, and that was it. Compared to her previous relationships – which generally involved long descriptions of the guy in her _I love butterflies_ voice and lots of agonizing details about the dates they'd been on – Annie's relationship with Vincent was an utter mystery. Except for a few hinted remarks that they were dating, Vincent could have been a friend of Annie's from class or something, or a friend from Annie's volunteer work at the hospital. And then, suddenly, Annie was engaged and it seems very suspicious to Jeff. He tells the rest of the group as much and they all seem to be on his side except Britta, who is persistent in the belief that Vincent is just a nice guy with a pleasing accent.

"He's sweet, Jeff, and Annie likes him!"

"Yeah, you remember what happened with the _last_ guy Annie was interested in dating who you said that about?"

Troy frowns. "Business Suit Greg?"

Pierce says, "Oh, I liked him."

Business Suit Greg was an asshole.

Jeff huffs and rolls his eyes. "Okay, the _last_ last guy. Rich? Anyone remember him? And maybe remember his recent appearance on the local news's bi-weekly Psychopaths and Scumbags feature heading the _Psychopaths_ list? You guys approved of _him_, too, and god only knows what might have happened if _they'd_ actually dated!"

Britta's face falls. "But Vincent is English!"

"So was Jack the Ripper, Britta. I guarantee you: Vincent is evil. He must be stopped before he hurts our Annie."

That's when Annie returns with the pizza and two bags full of ice cream cartons and everyone plasters fake smiles on and pretends they hadn't just been conspiring against her new fiancé. Jeff jumps up from his chair and rubs his hands together, feigning eagerness.

"Well guys, let's eat!"


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note:** Quick thanks to everyone reading! Just wanted to say that the updates for this fic will, barring unforeseen (probably college-related) circumstances, be at least once every weekend. Shorter chapters will probably get double updates, but tonight's chapter is fairly long so this is it until next week!_

**Title: **Idiots and Lost Causes  
><strong>Author: <strong>wordybee  
><strong>Spoilers: <strong>Up to season 3, I guess.  
><strong>Rating: <strong>T for now?  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Weird timeline. Swearing. Mopey Jeff Winger.  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>3,585 for this chapter.  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I don't own Community.  
><strong>Summary: <strong>Jeff and Annie have been in the habit of giving up for so long that neither of them noticed that they never actually did.

* * *

><p>Dinner starts out fairly tame. There was a brief bout of sulking as Annie insisted Troy and Abed turn the TV off, but when they're all sitting around the table it's just the awkward silence that always happens when a group of friends eats with an outsider. Jeff's pretty sure that his smile – though strained – looks genuine as he passes plates around the table. He's sitting right across from Vincent (which is just <em>terrific<em>), who's been sort of squished between Annie and Shirley. Eight people simply do not fit at this table. Jeff thinks it's a sign.

"So, I'm sorry that Mary couldn't make it today," Jeff says. He unceremoniously plops an overlarge slice of pizza and a spoonful of macaroni and cheese onto his plate and glances up at the rest of the group. He's met with blank faces.

"Who?" says Pierce.

Jeff's about to answer when Annie chirps, "His girlfriend, Pierce. We all met her a couple weeks ago remember? She was really nice. And pretty. And I'm sorry she couldn't make it, Jeff, is she working tonight? Everyone at the hospital loves her. Me too. She's a great nurse."

Annie clears her throat and takes a sip of the wine in front of her. Vincent is giving her the side-eye while Jeff's still trying to decipher her ramblings. Even Shirley's looking at her kind of funny, but hides it when she smiles at Vincent and sweetly asks, "So, Vincent, where are you from?"

"London, directly." Vincent tears his eyes away from Annie, who has started cramming pizza into her mouth like she thinks if her brain can't control her speech, she's better off making it impossible to talk at all. Vincent says, "Er… But I was born in Birmingham and I spent time all over, really. My family moved a lot."

Shirley's smile hasn't wavered. "Oh, that's nice. Did they come with you to America?"

Even though he tries to hide it by taking a bite of his own pizza, Jeff can see that Vincent's expression is slightly bitter when he shakes his head. This is Jeff's opening to say, "You're not very close with your parents are you, Vincent?"

Vincent blinks, shifts his attention to Jeff and says, "Er… no, not really."

"Are they coming to the wedding?"

"I…" He looks at Annie. "No, probably not." Annie looks slightly shocked at this, and then sad – perhaps because Annie's parents probably wouldn't be at her wedding either, and maybe that's just occurred to her.

"Who _are_ your parents, anyway?" Jeff tries to keep any air of interrogation out of his voice or expression but he's stabbing his macaroni and cheese pretty violently and his face hurts with smiling so hard. It's probably been a while since he blinked. "Annie hasn't even told us your last name! What is it?"

"It's Hart. My last name is Hart."

Shirley starts in on an, "Aaaw," but Jeff cuts her off with a scowl.

"Nice name," he says brusquely. "How'd you and Annie meet?"

Vincent has given up on his pizza completely, since every time he gets his slice anywhere near his mouth he's asked a question. Jeff glances down at Vincent's pizza and notices that the man has scraped all his toppings off, leaving a lightly sauced triangle of pizza crust with a single bite out of the point. Weird.

"Er… Hospital?"

Annie is looking, wide-eyed, between Jeff and Vincent. Jeff is willing to admit that, while he's sure he started out this dinner and subsequent questioning of Vincent Hart with a perfectly sane and non-manic disposition, he's gotten considerably more insane and manic as more information has come in.

"And when did you start dating?"

"Jeff." Annie's voice is pitched sharply in warning. Jeff looks over to her and the meek, slightly ill expression of bewilderment has been replaced by Annie's patented _What You are Doing is Wrong and I Won't Stand For It_ face.

Jeff wants to continue this line of questioning despite that look, because he thinks it's getting somewhere in uncovering the mystery of Vincent Hart, but then Pierce starts choking on a bite of macaroni and cheese and his imminent death is unfortunately distracting for the whole interrogation.

* * *

><p>Pierce's airway had been cleared of pasta via a swiftly administered Heimlich maneuver from Troy ("I took a class in rescuing people! I'd heard there was mouth-to-mouth but apparently you don't have to do that anymore.") and everyone is starting to settle back into their seats when Britta taps Jeff on the shoulder and not-so-subtly requests him to "help her with getting drinks or a fork or something."<p>

"Seriously?" Jeff asks when they're out of earshot, safely ensconced in the kitchen.

"I was going to say the same sarcastic _seriously_ to you!" she hisses at him.

"What!"

Britta makes a face, mocking, "'_What!'_ Jeff, you are totally giving that guy in there the fifth degree."

"Third degree."

"Whatever! This ain't Gitmo, Jeff! We all thought you were over Annie years ago, but here you are acting like someone just stole the last slice of low-carb pumpkin pie and you're out for low-carb blood! You need to cool it with your jealousy before Annie catches on and freaks out, thinking we hate her new boyfriend."

"He's her _fiancé_, and we _do _hate him, remember?" Jeff keeps his voice low and as un-hysterical as he can manage while still being suitably convincing in his anti-Vincent argument. "He's a serial killer! Jack the Ripper, Britta!"

It takes him roughly five seconds before he follows up his sentence with, "And I'm not jealous!"

"Oh please. You're Mayor McJealous from the town of Jealousville. You're Jean ValJealous of the hit Broadway musical _Les Jealousables._"

Jeff is aghast. He makes appropriately aghast noises, then – gathering together all his oratorical skill and mastery of the English language – tells Britta, "Shut up," and walks out of the kitchen.

* * *

><p>The meal is still awkward but everyone survives because Jeff does his best to keep his mouth shut and his fork away from Vincent's jugular.<p>

Thankfully, Shirley is just as curious (though significantly less homicidal) about Vincent as Jeff is, so she takes over the role of interrogator fairly well without actually seeming like an interrogator. They learn that Vincent works at the front desk of the hospital where Annie volunteers, and that they first met when Annie asked him for directions, and that they really connected when Vincent said he was thinking of taking classes at Greendale in order to pad out his resume a bit. Their first date was to Señor Kevin's. Vincent paid for it. Jeff's nausea causes him to give up on his pizza halfway through and Jeff blames it on an overconsumption of carbohydrates.

When all that's left of their meal is a few slices of pizza, Jeff's leftovers, and Vincent's pile of cast-aside toppings, Annie stands up and cheerfully starts clearing away plates. Abed stands to help her, and Troy finishes off the macaroni in Jeff's casserole dish before handing it over to Annie. She gives him a frustrated look, but still takes it.

"I guess no leftovers for you and Mary, Jeff!" Annie says cheerfully, although Jeff is pretty sure she's trying for happily apologetic or something like that.

"It's fine. She can always make more."

Annie's smile widens just a manic fraction and she says, "Oh, Mary made it?"

Pierce lets out a barking laugh at that. "What, you think Jeff actually cooks?"

"Yeah, Annie," says Britta, "When I went to his apartment his oven wasn't even plugged in."

"Do you know how much time it takes to install one of those things, Britta?"

Troy blinks at Jeff. "Like, thirty minutes tops, dude. The guy from Home Depot did it and then baked us a casserole. We watched Abed's copy of _Superzombies 2: More Zombie, More Super_ together."

Nodding, Abed adds, "His name is Bernard. He's in our Dungeons and Dragons campaign now. Elf Ranger, level three."

All the while, Annie is clearing away plates and Vincent is staring at the group with a feigned look of interest in what they're saying. It's very clear that he has no idea what's going on, and Annie seems to notice this – and take pity on him – as she taps him on the shoulder and hands him a stack of plates.

"Vincent, dear, how about you help me get everything ready for dessert. We can set the table with the nice bowls."

Troy lets out a loud, frustrated groan. "Do we have to sit at the table _again_? It's all crowded and I can't see the TV and it's really weird watching Jeff plot to kill your fiancé all night."

"What?" Vincent looks startled, seems to have forgotten which member of the group is Jeff, and just darts his eyes across six faces. He looks like a panicked mouse. Annie pats him on the chest and sends a warning glare in Troy's direction, followed by a more muted warning glare in Jeff's direction, and then pushes her fiancé away from the table and into the kitchen.

When Jeff hears the clinking of silverware and "good" bowls likely made from that indestructible glassware and bought in bulk at Wal-Mart, he leans toward the center of the table in order to start another conspiratorial whisper conversation. The rest of the group, fairly used to the signs of a good conspiratorial whisper conversation after all these years, follows his lead and leans in as well. Jeff spares a moment to be impressed by their synchronicity, actually.

Troy is the first to speak, giving the kitchen – and by association, Vincent – a suspicious look before saying, "Yeah, that dude's weird. Did you see him peel all his toppings off his pizza? That's some serial killer stuff right there." He taps Abed on the shoulder. "Abed, I think you should call Batman."

Abed nods as Britta says, "Troy. Seriously? We talked about this." At her disapproving look, Abed's nod transitions seamlessly into a negative head shake instead.

"I don't think Batman is required tonight," Jeff says, and steamrolls right past Britta's exasperated _Jeff!_ as he continues, "because I'm leaning away from the psychopath theory, pizza eating habits aside."

"So what," Pierce says, his voice not even close to a whisper and Jeff motions for him to lower the volume already – which he does, mostly, when he follows with, "you think that guy's all safe now?"

"No, I think there's a different sort of nefarious plot going on, and he's using Annie to act it out. I feel like it has something to do with why he's here, and that weird look when we asked him about his family."

"He's British, maybe he's after a green card," Britta offers. Jeff is surprised that she's going along with this, considering her insistence on his jealousy and how _normal_ Vincent seems. When he looks at her she just shrugs a little, which could either mean that Vincent's bizarre pizza-eating habits have convinced her or she is just going with the flow because she wants to see how the whole thing plays out. There's a paranoid part of Jeff's brain that thinks she's enabling him in order to teach him some sort of poorly planned psychological lesson that is more likely to cost him extra hours at his therapist's than really teach him anything.

Abed is reacting to Britta's green card theory with an expression of criticism, which is basically just a tilt of his head and a gaze into the middle distance. Abed requires a lot of inference.

"Green card plot," he says. "I hope not. It's pretty cheap." He refocuses on the rest of the group and shakes his head. "It doesn't fit, though. The key to the green card plot is always speed. Annie's set the date for her wedding in November, which is four months away. That's fast for a wedding, but not green card fast."

"Well, what else do we have on him?" Jeff asks, and he can recognize a thread of desperation in his voice that he tries to ignore. "Green card plotter or murderer, that's where we are."

"Maybe he's just a nice young boy who's in love with our Annie," Shirley says, her whisper just as honey-sweet as her speaking voice.

Pierce snorts derisively. "Oh, please, Shirley, don't be so naïve."

"What's Shirley naïve about?" Annie asks, gliding back into the room carrying a stack of bowls and a handful of spoons. Of course she'd heard that, because Pierce had forgotten how to whisper again. Also, it's obvious that she'd been talking to Vincent this entire time – there's no way she had to take that long getting bowls and spoons – and Jeff settles back into the slumped position he'd been in since he'd thrown his pizza down in disgust toward the end of the meal.

"Pretty much everything," Abed says to Annie. "It's one of her supporting character traits."

"Abed!"

Annie, still putting on her best "hostess smile," hands Shirley a bowl and chuckles good-naturedly at Abed. "Oh, that's not true. Shirley knows that's not true. Vincent, my friends are such jokers – I was telling you they're such jokers in the kitchen and now, see? Jokes! Joking!"

Vincent doesn't look very convinced. He's holding two tubs of ice cream, one in each arm, and has a silver ice cream scoop clutched in his left hand. He fumbles the ice cream tubs into the center of the table and, with slightly too much force, sets the scoop next to them. The nervous, mousy young man glances at his watch quickly – way too quickly for him to have actually processed the time – and clears his throat. He looks at Annie apologetically.

"Actually, I – er, I just remembered I really – uh, I really should go to work tomorrow."

"You said this afternoon you were going to call out so we could start planning. You never did it? I mean, we have a lot to do and I haven't even shown you my wedding binder yet!"

"W-wedding binder?" Judging by the expression on Vincent's face, he can't quite understand the meaning behind those two words in conjunction with one another and why they would be of interest to _him_. He shakes his head and shrugs with one shoulder. "I really need the hours."

Annie looks disappointed. Jeff wants to punch Vincent in the nose for disappointing Annie, but also he's glad Vincent's leaving. It's an emotional dilemma.

Annie sort of hops and shrugs at the same time, trying to put some pep into her disappointment in a way that is very _Annie _and makes Jeff smile just a bit. She turns to the rest of the group and says, "Well, Vincent's shift tomorrow is actually really early, so he should probably be getting home."

Everyone makes extremely obvious noises of false sadness at that news. Jeff can hear Troy mutter something about being able to eat ice cream while watching TV instead. Annie pretends she can't tell that her friends are kind of being assholes to her fiancé – which, Jeff makes a mental note to be wary of that inevitable retaliation later.

"Okay, um." Annie guides Vincent toward the door. "I have to drive him home, actually, because he's still not really used to the uh, roads here." She picks up two coats from where they're laying across the back of the couch. One coat is bright purple, the other drab, grey tweed. The tweed is obviously Vincent's, and it's expensive, if Jeff knows his designer coats (which he does). He stores that piece of information into a mental file marked "Getting Rid of Vincent (for Purely Altruistic Reasons)."

The whole group settled around the table is nodding and smiling fake, pleasant smiles and waving at the exiting couple. Jeff wonders if it's obvious that they're going to start talking about Annie and Vincent as soon as the two are out the door, or if it just feels that way to him because he's planning on talking about Annie and Vincent as soon as they're out the door. Either way, when the apartment door shuts behind them it's like a rubber band finally snapping, as the whole group seems to deflate with relief.

"Jeez that was awkward," Troy grumbles, getting himself and Abed a bowl of Double Chocolate Swirl ice cream each. Even though he'd been planning on leaving the dinner table practically the entire night, he stays seated and asks Jeff what the plan is regarding Vincent. Apparently being a part of a secret plan is more interesting than watching secret plans play out on the TV screen.

While carefully scooping up a bite of ice cream, Abed tells Jeff, "What you need to do is get him alone and interrogate him."

Troy perks up. "Oh! Do good cop, bad cop. That's really fun. Though you'd have to find a good cop, since you're kinda obviously the bad cop since you hated him on sight and everything."

Jeff ignores that. "I'm not sure when I could interrogate him."

"You were doing a good job of it over dinner," Britta says. Jeff only offers her the briefest of glares for her effort in snark.

"No, I think we're going to have to take a less direct path to this. Tonight was a pretty bad show for getting Annie to feel like we're okay with her—" Jeff forces the words through his mouth in a voice that's something like a snarl – "_future husband_."

"And whose fault is that?"

Still ignoring Britta, Jeff turns to Pierce: "Pierce, do you have one of those private investigators that rich people always seem to have in their pockets?"

"Do I! I should tell you about the time in 1973 when—"

"Great. Get them to look into Vincent Hart. Family from Birmingham."

"I thought it was London?"

"I thought all English places ended in shire?"

Britta tells Troy, "They don't," and the other man looks supremely disappointed by this new fact.

"Dang, I knew my online pen pal was lying. Worcestershire can't be a place… That's a _sauce_."

Jeff's eyes flick upwards but he stops himself from rolling them. "Could we please focus, here?" He turns to Shirley. She looks impressed and excited by the idea of being a part of the 'plan,' her earlier insult forgotten. "Shirley, see if you can't use your history of concern and powers of passive-aggression to get Annie to call off the wedding on her own."

"Oh, Jeffrey, you don't _really_ think that's a good idea do—"

"Perfect." He turns to Abed and Troy, who are still the only ones eating ice cream. They're watching Jeff with the same level of interest they would probably have while watch a decently exciting B-movie. "I'm going to need you two to keep an eye on Annie. Be on the lookout for any hints at what Vincent might be up to. See if you can get anything from him if he ever comes over."

"Cool," they say in unison, and then follow it up with a version of their signature clap that involves banging their ice cream spoons together instead of actually, well, clapping. Abed continues with a few more mutterings of 'cool,' as per usual.

Britta sits up straighter. "What about me? Oh! I can check out Vincent's job. Maybe he doesn't actually work there. Maybe I can use my authority as a psychologist—"

"No."

"You didn't even let me finish."

"I was saying no to the idea of you having any authority," Jeff tells her.

"Oh, then—"

"No to the other thing, too."

Britta crosses her arms over her chest and falls back against her chair, expression like a particularly moody teenager. Shirley gives Jeff a guilt-inducing look powered by concern and passive-aggression that goes to show that she's perfect for the particular job Jeff has assigned her. Jeff sighs and says, "Fine. Annie will probably want to plan her wedding with you because of your magical wedding planning instincts. Work with Shirley on getting her to see sense and call it off."

Britta groans. "Wedding planning? I wanted to do something _cool_."

Jeff ignores her and stands up. He looks at each member of the group in turn, expression serious. "We all have our roles. Now let's make sure Annie doesn't marry that limey bastard." At their suspicious looks, Jeff adds, "For her own sake. Because he's up to something and he's no good and he's probably after a green card. Or to kill her and steal her feet. Or he's just an asshole. Maybe. Whatever."

Bizarrely okay with Jeff's wavering, everyone nods. They're probably more interested in just _doing_ something than they are in Jeff actually being right about Vincent, but Jeff figures he's put a kernel of doubt into their minds and that's enough to keep them going until they get more information.

Troy pauses in eating his ice cream for a moment to ask, "Can this dinner be over now? It feels like it's lasted for like… over a year."

"Yes."

Pierce stands and it ready to leave until he turns back to Jeff. "If I'm getting the investigator and they're –" he gestures to the rest of the group "– manipulating Annie into changing her mind, what are you supposed to be doing?"

"I'll be approaching the investigation from a legal perspective by using the databases at the office to pry into Vincent Hart's past."

"Jeffrey! Isn't that unethical? And illegal?"

"Please, Shirley, I'm a lawyer. What do I care about legality?"


	4. Chapter 4

**_Author's Note:_** _This is really late. I'm so sorry. College is awful. Forgive me, dear readers._

* * *

><p>Just as Jeff is about to open his apartment door, his cell phone rings. He reaches into his pocket to retrieve it and sighs at Britta's name on the screen.<p>

"We just finished talking to each other not ten minutes ago," he says in lieu of a proper greeting.

Britta affects a condescendingly happy tone and tells him, "I just wanted to call and congratulate you for finally owning up to your extended crush on Annie."

"When in the hell did I do that?"

He can practically hear her eye roll. "Please, Jeff. You might not have _said_ the words, but actions speak way louder, and I'm pretty sure the action of trying to break up Annie's engagement is the equivalent of screaming into a bullhorn while standing in an echo chamber."

"I am not trying to break up Annie's engagement," Jeff says, carefully, as he tries to open his door with the same hand holding the empty casserole dish from dinner and fails, which results in a pause long enough for Britta to get in a good scoff.

Jeff ignores her and finishes his sentence: "—because of any _feelings_ for her on my part. I am trying to break up her engagement because she's marrying a shady British snot we know nothing about."

Jeff secures his cell phone precariously between his ear and shoulder, shifts the casserole dish to his other hand, and finally gets inside his apartment with a deft twist of the key and a well-timed kick.

"Yeah, Jeff," Britta says, "because you care so very much about the romantic entanglements of everyone in this group. Where were you when I let Glen the Drifter stay in my house for a week? He ended up stealing a month's supply of toilet paper and all my red underwear."

"Hey, it taught you not to trust people who call themselves _Glen the Drifter_. That was my gift to you."

He sets his keys on the little table near the door and walks to place the casserole dish on the counter next to the stove. The apartment is quiet and all the lights and electronics are off, which means that Mary isn't in. "Also, you aren't Annie."

There's a long pause at the other end of the line and then, with a sincerity that makes Jeff stop in his tracks on the way to his bedroom, Britta says, "Exactly."

When Jeff doesn't have a pithy response to that, Britta covers for him by announcing that she has to do laundry. She doesn't have any other parting shots about Jeff's feelings for Annie or vice-versa even though Jeff expects it of her. Then again, sometimes it sort of makes sense for Britta to make a single lucky strike and then fade into the shadows like some sort of mental-slash-emotional ninja.

Jeff ends the call and tosses the phone on the far pillow of his bed when he gets into his bedroom. He flops down after it, rubbing his eyes and feeling exhausted despite the fact that he should be feeling fine, hangover recovery notwithstanding. He stares up at the ceiling of his room and thinks about anything other than what Britta had said.

Because he knows she's right. And he also knows it's completely hopeless.

* * *

><p>(The last time Jeff Winger kissed Annie Edison was the first time in a long time that he realized he felt something more for her than friendly affection and borderline-awkward lust.<p>

It was in her final semester at Greendale, during one of the college's many poorly thought out but endearingly enthusiastic dances. Jeff was visiting the campus to lend Annie moral support, and maybe do a little triumphant basking in the glory of having departed that circus masquerading as an institution of higher learning.

Annie was manning a kissing booth. Jeff was surprised that there was a kissing booth because it was a Valentine's Day themed dance and usually the decorations for Greendale dances were frightening at their best and chaotically nonsensical at their worst, and the kissing booth was actually well suited to the whole concept.

Then again, it was a Valentine's Day dance in the middle of Summer semester so things evened out on the "Greendale competency" front.

Either way, Annie was in the kissing booth trying to raise money for the school by handing out little chocolate kisses wrapped in silver foil. Occasionally she'd kiss someone on the cheek – harmless people she probably knew from classes, for the most part, though Jeff gave them the suspicious squinty-eye just in case any of them tried anything – but it was mostly the foil-wrapped candies people were getting for every quarter or dollar they put in her plastic fundraiser jar.

Jeff got in line and, when it was his turn to face Annie in her pink cardboard booth, he grinned at her, taking it all in. She smiled back, the expression tinged with a little bit of embarrassment, and waved her jar at him.

"Money or nothing, bub," she said.

"Haven't I given enough to this school?" Jeff tried his best to affect a put-upon tone but it was hard because Annie was dressed in a striped pink and white t-shirt, a pair of white suspenders with pink sequin hearts sewn all over them, and atop her head was a pink baseball cap with an arrow going through it. The arrow's tip was a heart and the whole thing was coated with a thick layer of red glitter that, no doubt, Annie would be finding on her skin and clothes for days – perhaps even months – to come. It was a perfect mix of casual summer clothes and Valentine aesthetics and it was obvious that Annie put more thought into her outfit for the Valentine's Day Summer Dance than Dean Pelton had put into throwing it.

Jeff was incredibly disappointed that he couldn't see the whole ensemble, since Annie was blocked from the waist down by the cardboard frame of the kissing booth. He was thinking pink shorts and striped red tube socks.

She gave him a sly look from beneath the brim of her arrow-pierced baseball cap. "Please, you love this place and you know it."

Jeff feigned thoughtfulness, as if he were debating that point extensively within his own head. "Under duress, I might be able to name one or two acceptable things about Greendale."

"Duress, huh?" Annie adjusted her ridiculous suspenders and Jeff smirked at the way the glitter sparkled under the pink and white LED lights that outlined her booth. "What if I asked very, very nicely?"

"With you, that is definitely a form of duress. If your Disney Eyes could be weaponized we'd be able to topple a slew of corrupt dictatorships in record time."

"In that case, would you _please_ donate some money to help this wonderful school that you love very, very much?"

And there were the Disney Eyes. _Do the lights make them more shimmery?_ Jeff wondered, trying not to smile. They were giving the glitter and sequin hearts a run for their money as far as sparkle went.

"Good lord," Jeff said, rolling his eyes. "Fine, fine, yes. I will make a donation to help save this godforsaken place from itself just–" Jeff took out his wallet and held up a five-dollar bill, "you don't happen to have change for this, do you?"

Instead of dignifying that slight on the worth of helping Greendale – although maybe it was actually a dose of emergency cynicism to buffer himself against Annie's aforementioned Disney Eyes – with a verbal response, Annie leaned out of the booth and snatched the money from Jeff's fingers. She stuffed it into the jar and then picked the jar up and set it on the floor next to her, out of sight and out of reach of Jeff if he wanted to take back his five dollars – which he wouldn't dream of doing, of course. Just seeing Annie wearing a glittery arrow hat and sequin-heart suspenders was worth five dollars.

"Thank you for your donation," she said to him, smile sugary-sweet and pleased. She set an upright cardboard sign with the word "CLOSED" written on it where the jar had been before. The sign was, of course, bedecked in red glitter and pink construction paper hearts.

"Oh, come on! Five dollars and I didn't even get a kiss?"

She rolled her eyes and waved him forward and as Jeff leaned down he expected a kiss on the cheek or a little silver-wrapped piece of chocolate to appear in front of his nose, like all the others before him had gotten. Instead, though, Annie stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the lips.

It was the first kiss from Annie Edison that Jeff had gotten in almost four years and it was nothing, really – just the briefest touch of lips. It was about as chaste a kiss you could get, even considering that the two individuals involved in the kiss were Jeff – to whom 'chaste' was not a label one could generally apply – and Annie – whose natural appeal made 'chaste' difficult despite her relative innocence – and it was over in a blink.

There certainly should not have been a spark in that kiss. There should not have been, after four years, so much as a glimmer of lust or romance or whatever it had been that had driven Jeff to a make-out session with Annie at the end of their first year at Greendale. Jeff had spent all that time slowly cultivating something like a platonic friendship with Annie, slowly transferring his affections for her from the category of _romance or lust or something not to be named_ to the category of _really fond friendship just like everyone else in the group, really_, and a small kiss in the middle of Greendale's ludicrously decorated cafeteria shouldn't have shifted his world so completely.

There should not have been a spark.

But there was.

It ignited somewhere in Jeff Winger's chest and _whooshed_ him back to the previous kisses – the previous, downright _scandalous_ kisses when compared to the tiny, one-second meeting of lips through a cardboard kissing booth he had just experienced – and it struck him with something he'd never felt before where Annie was concerned:

Hope.

_This could work, _he'd thought – way back in the deep part of his mind, so that is was less of a thought and more of a feeling. It made him _believe_ that it could work, made a part of him already start hoping for it to happen sometime soon.

He would later determine this to be a _huge_ mistake.)

* * *

><p>Jeff realizes he's been staring at the ceiling for a very long time, berates himself for being a total idiot, and rolls off the bed so that he's in a sitting position instead of sprawled out like a lovelorn character in one of Annie's freaky Gothic Romance novels.<p>

After running a hand over his face, Jeff determines that what he needs is an invigorating hour or so of exercise to work off all the carbs he'd eaten at dinner, a nice shower, and maybe an On Demand episode of something stupid and ironically entertaining. He could manage a late evening _not_ thinking about Annie or Vincent or the Annie-Vincent union set for – _four months? Jesus_, he thinks.

Jeff shakes his head. He stands up, which is a start in the right direction, and robotically starts to undress for his workout.

"_Completely_ hopeless," he mutters to his empty bedroom.


	5. Chapter 5

There's a blaring, irritating sound in Jeff's left ear and it makes him jump awake in a flurry of confusion and pain. He realizes it was his cell phone when it rings again, the screen flashing with Shirley's name and a picture of her smiling face. Apparently Jeff's head had fallen atop the phone in the night, which goes to explain why he usually, you know, sets it on his nightstand and doesn't leave it lying about on his bed. Jeff answers the call on the third ring and holds it up to the ear _not_ doing some ringing of its own.

"Hello?" he says.

"Good morning, Jeffrey!"

"Shirley? Why are you whispering?"

"Annie's just in the other room getting us coffee. Oh, Britta's here too!" There's a muffled sound of movement and then Britta's voice growls a grumpy, "Hello," before Shirley's cheerful whisper returns.

"I thought instead of just telling you about our first wedding planning meeting with Annie, I'd let you listen in. It's fine because I'm on a new plan and I have _thousands_ of rollover minutes! Isn't that nice?"

"Shirley, you want me to spy on your conversation with Annie?"

"Mhm!"

"That's probably at least a little bit unethical, and you're my favorite person."

There's a low, whispered version of a pleased giggle before Shirley says, "Oh! She's coming back. Setting the phone down on the table. Don't make any loud noises or she'll hear you, Jeffrey."

Jeff hears a brief series of rustles and then a clunk. Annie's voice fades in, probably because she's moving closer to the phone where it sits, most likely hidden by Shirley's giant purse. Jeff doesn't catch the start of her sentence but latches on as she's saying, "…mint green and a soft pink color, or maybe blue? I really like a floral theme, with real flowers and the flowers on the place settings and the menu and things like that."

Some sounds of clinking, like maybe spoons in coffee cups (Jeff looks at his watch and, yeah, 7:42 AM – no wonder Britta was so grouchy when she said hello), take the place of Annie's voice.

Jeff can hear Britta make a sound that's a mix between a groan of agony and a sigh. Then, as if the words have been forced from her throat by whatever wedding planner gods naturally possess her, she tells Annie, "Never make the whole thing dramatic color-wise unless you really want to piss off your bridesmaids. You gotta mix a neutral in with the punchy colors if you want to be taken seriously."

"A neutral, like… gray?" The very thought of it seems to horrify Annie, judging by the way she whispers _gray_ like it's a particularly nasty swear word.

That's when Shirley chirps, "Oh! What about _cream_? I went to a wedding once that was cream and peach and it was lovely."

Britta makes a disgusted sound "Did that wedding happen to be in the 1980s?"

"Um… yes."

"Get with the twenty-first century, Shirley. This year, brown shades are in for neutrals. Or you can go with classic ivory. Gray is a way to make a statement, though, if it's done right."

_Why am I listening to this?_ Jeff wonders – not because it's wrong to listen in on conversations in secret (which it is, which Jeff knows but is ignoring because there are more important things at play here, or at least that's what he's telling himself), but because he seems to just be listening to three women plan a damn wedding. They're supposed to be getting Annie to _cancel_ the wedding. Where the hell is Britta's instinct for nosing in where she doesn't belong? Matter of fact, where is Shirley's? There's subtle, and then there's completely missing the point and these two are _completely missing the point_.

Then, with all the grace of a freight train going off track and crashing into the side of a mountain, Britta says, "Hey, Annie, speaking of weddings – why are you marrying Vincent, anyway?"

"Why, you don't like him?" Annie sounds worried. The worry segues smoothly into panic. "Oh my gosh, you guys _don't_ like him, do you? I kept telling Vincent he was just imagining things because he was nervous last night, but you guys really don't like him!"

"No, no, Annie, sweetie," says Shirley, "it's not that, it's just… Well, it _is_ pretty sudden, isn't it?"

"We've been dating for over eight months."

Britta voices Jeff's thoughts by asking, "You _have_?"

"Okay, well, it wasn't totally _exclusive_ the first few months or so but… English people aren't as outright as we are, Vincent told me. So even though Vincent never really _said_… But yes, we've been dating for almost a year. And he asked me to marry him, and I said yes…"

"Uh, yeah." Britta clears her throat, trying her best 'therapist' tone in an attempt to keep herself from verging into the realm of insulting with her next question: "But can you say _why_ you're marrying him?"

There's a long stretch of silence and Jeff realizes he's gone from leaning back on his sofa to leaning forward, as close to the phone as he can get without his face actually touching it. Britta and Shirley have _finally_ started really getting in to what they're meant to be doing, which is making Annie question the whole Vincent thing and all the sketchiness that surrounds it.

"You promise you won't laugh?" Annie asks.

Shirley and Britta both chorus, "We promise," although Shirley's far more comforting and Britta sounds like she's verbally signing a contract with the devil. It's apparently good enough for Annie, because she takes a deep breath and tells them:

"Well, when I was about to go into high school I was really nervous. I have a neighbor who was kind of mean to me, she'd tell me horror stories about high school and college, you know – older kids picking on younger kids, that sort of thing. Completely normal, but intimidating. Even though I _knew_ she was just messing with me, it just… it got into my head. And I started thinking that I needed a _plan_ if I was going to get through the next ten years of my life and make it to proper adulthood correctly.

"I wrote it all out one night when I couldn't sleep. I planned out everything, from the Advanced Placement classes I needed to take, to the college I wanted to go to… I even planned to take a year off after college and backpack through Europe, and after Europe I… Well, I figured I'd get married."

_Of course she did_, Jeff thinks. Of course young Annie Edison tried to plan out her entire life from high school to college to her trip down the aisle. Jeff was willing to bet that if she'd made her plan twenty years instead of ten years, she would've pinpointed exactly how soon and how many children she expected.

And honestly, Jeff couldn't blame her. He expected it of her, certainly, but while Annie did a lot of things he _expected_ of her and still got an unfortunate and unfair amount of mockery from him, he couldn't mock her for this. He'd done basically the same thing, after all, though with a lot less precise planning and a lot less legality. You didn't fake a degree and successfully cheat your way into a law career without preparation, after all, and Jeff had _prepared_. He'd planned a long life of raking in ill-gotten lawyer fees, but it had all gone severely off track…

It had done the same for Annie, of course. Big plans rarely work out the way they're meant to, no matter how much care and detail went into them. And Jeff is sure that Annie's plan was chock-full of care and detail.

"But then high school came along, and even though I'd wanted to get a degree in criminal justice and maybe transition into law, my mother told me that the _Richardsons'_ daughter was going to school to be a _doctor_ and if I wanted to make her proud I'd be a doctor, too, but a _better_ doctor and so instead of my philosophy and ethics classes I started taking advanced bio classes and then my mother wanted me to be 'well rounded' so she signed me up for some business classes at City College, too and it all became too much so then it was Adderall and well, you know how that ended."

After such a barrage of information, the silence that follows is somehow _more_ silent than just silent. Jeff doesn't quite know what to do with himself; his hand hovers over pressing the power button on his phone in order to end the call. He hadn't intended to listen in on a personal conversation like _this _one… He'd just wanted information on Vincent – that was all.

Jeff suspects that Shirley has forgotten about her phone completely, otherwise he's sure she would've turned it off by now. But the line stays open, and Jeff pulls his hand back to rest on the couch cushion.

"There's just one thing left on my list that isn't yet completely impossible to accomplish," Annie is saying. "The part where I get married."

"Oh come on, Annie, you were what – thirteen?" Even though Britta's words are harsh, her tone is sympathetic. "If we all held ourselves to the plans we made when we were thirteen, right now I'd be the owner of Colorado's only Rescue Ranch for Wildlife and Women's Rights."

Jeff makes a face at the blank phone screen in front of him. Apparently Shirley and Annie both made similar faces because the next thing Britta says is a defensive, "What? A little girl can't like animals and dismantling the patriarchy? Fine, whatever, Double-R-Double-W-R would've been _amazing_."

"Yeah, well, Britta," Annie says, using her 'let's get back on track' voice, "I know you're right but – that plan I made was _The Plan_. It was the ten-year plan to end all ten-year plans. I pinned it up over my desk and worked hard for everything on it, but… you know, I just didn't…"

"Aw, Annie, sweetie, it's not the end of the world that you didn't make everything on your list—"

"Nothing!" Annie's gone from sad to furious – at herself, at her mother, at the unfairness of life; it is all clear in her voice that her 'failure' to accomplish her ten-year plan has frustrated her, probably has been frustrating her for the years that the group has known her.

"I didn't do _anything_ in that plan right, Shirley. I messed up my major completely, I didn't go to the right school, I didn't pass high school with a full scholarship and honors and I didn't meet the love of my life on a year-long backpacking trip through Europe!"

She takes a deep breath. "But I met Vincent, and he's really sweet and he loves me."

There's silence on the other end of the phone. Jeff eagerly waits for the obvious follow-up to that last statement, the _clear_ question that either Britta or Shirley should ask next:

_But do _you_ love _him_?_

Instead, there are the sounds of rustling papers and moving fabric. There's an intake of breath but Jeff can't figure out whose, and then Annie forces cheer through her emotion-thick voice and says, "So, a neutral and a strong color, right Britta?"

_Wait, what? _Did Jeff black out at some point? Where the hell had the previous conversation gone and why are they back on wedding planning?

_Why aren't they asking the obvious question?_

Britta says, "Yeah," in response to Annie. Her voice is a lot more enthusiastic now than it was in the earlier wedding planning conversation.

When the everyone's interests on the other side of the phone turn entirely to color swatches with names like _pearled ivory _and _Tuscan Sunset Orange_, flower arrangements, and _tonal themes_, Jeff reaches over and finally taps the button that ends the call. He's afraid that if he leaves the line open too long he'll lose his patience entirely and yell out the question himself, and he knows what a disaster that would be.

Still, it's all that's running through his head, mingling with his irritation that his two spies utterly failed in their mission.

_But do _you_ love _him_?_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _The Author's Note is hanging out down here now. I just want to thank everyone who's been commenting and favoriting and all that good stuff. I don't think I openly appreciate you guys enough, so just... thanks._


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